City's TV industry hits new high

Wall Street may be withering and the city's unemployment rate may be stuck at a bloated 8.7%, but one local industry is bucking the negative economic trends.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday that a record 23 television series are filming in the city, largely as a result of a 30% state tax credit. The shows, which include eight new prime-time series, are part of an industry that supports 100,000 jobs in the city, the mayor said.

“We're working to strengthen and diversify New York City's economy and create jobs, and our thriving entertainment industry is a prime example of those efforts paying off,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg made the announcement at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn on the set of Sony Pictures Television's new series Pan Am, which follows pilots and stewardesses in 1963 at the dawn of the Jet Age.

In addition to the 23 prime-time programs, the city is home to 140 news programs, talk shows and reality series. Also, some 200 films were shot here last year.

Since January, when the state's Film Production Credit program was expanded to $420 million a year from $350 million and extended through 2014, 100 productions have signed on. More than 600 applications have been received.

Douglas Steiner, Chairman of Steiner Studios, called film and television production “manufacturing for the 21st century” because of the jobs it creates.

But some are skeptical of the benefits. When the Cuomo administration announced last spring that a record number of new television series were set to film in the state, disagreement surfaced over the economic impact of the state's film tax credits.

The Tax Foundation criticized the breaks as corporate welfare. The Motion Picture Association of America responded that a 2009 Ernst & Young study showed that in 2007, every $1 in tax credits yielded $1.88 in tax revenue and $17.75 in economic activity. The foundation retorted with a facetious statement: “This means that if we gave $1 trillion a year in subsidies to the MPAA's members, we could solve our long-term budget problems.”

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